2.- Scope of the study.

To be able to demonstrate that a reduction in environmental oxygen increases life span I will summarize present data and recommend expansion of research into the effects of environmental oxygen on animal life span based on the results obtained at the cellular level.

Initial experiments proposed here should be able to establish that environmental oxygen pressure constitutes the main modulator of life span. The fact that high atmospheric oxygen shortens life span must be clearly demonstrated, at all possible experimental levels. Once this first stage is successfully achieved, the study of chemical modifications of the atmosphere influencing life span, will become of vital importance   

INITIAL EXPERIMENTS TO PROVE THAT EXCESS OXYGEN SHORTENS, AND DETRIMENTALLY AFFECTS, LIFE SPAN

With the publication of Hayflick experiments, in 1961 it became evident that cells have a limited life span dependent on instructions carried out within the Genome of each species. Several experiments followed, and demonstrated that life span of cells is not only dependent on genetic instructions but that life span could be critically modified by alterations in the environment of the cell culture. Experiments carried out by Lester Packer and Kathy Fuehr, published in Nature in 1977, demonstrated that by getting cells to replicate in the presence of lower than normal atmospheric oxygen pressures, their lifespan increases   considerably.

  The first experiment of this research proposal is based on a similar system to that used in the experiments on cells carried out by Packer and Fuehr. In my research proposal, instead of experimenting on living cells,   trials to test the influence of atmospheric oxygen in life span will be carried out on living organisms and animals of different species.

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